Author: jjbackblues

I must jump like a frog from every couch or moving thing. I must ascend the tallest trees, towers, rocks with no help because I am the strongest. I have a compulsion to leap before looking from the highest heights; swing from anything that challenges me; touch as MANY things as my very small hands can manage and even lick them just to make sure they taste the way they appear.

Oh, by the way, when it looks like I’m doing this to you…

I really feel like I’m doing this…

It’s a hard balance as a mother. We want our children to be safe from all harm, stay our babies forever and never experience hurt, grief or fear. But, ironically, in conjunction with that, we want them to be strong and independent dreamers. We want them to aim for the mountain tops and let nothing stand in their way (Isaiah 41:10.)

I am one, and always have been, to see where a child takes one wobbly step and I, in turn (in my head), see them ten steps later rolling down the remainder of the steps. I have a natural knack for seeing a bleak outcome in these scenarios. It didn’t bother me before when it was with other people’s children because then I was just being “extra” cautious. It was almost laughable. But now, I have my own child for whom I am 100% responsible in every way. And I need to be so much more sensitive in the ways I am fostering her growth. My ways of watching for danger at every step and turn give almost a timid spirit to my very bold and independent child. I am learning there is a difference in teaching your child to be cautious, but to also enjoy the adventure of life all around them.

When my husband and I became parents, it gave me a whole new thankfulness as to God’s plan in joining us together. My husband is my complete opposite. He has taught me how to help push our child to the limits and brink of what she thinks is possible. Sometimes as a mother I get nervous because I think, that is too high or that is too far. But, the confidence, boldness and independence I see burst through our child is not to be underestimated. Some of that comes naturally, yes (and oh man does some of that independence come naturally haha,) but some of that has been planted and nurtured in her soul by a loving, earnest father.

Something my husband brought up the other day, that is very hard for me as a mother to think about is, one day our child will grow up and not need us anymore. We should desire that our children grow to be independent thinkers, bold dreamers and strong enough to stand up for their own beliefs. As much as I want my child to stay my little baby forever and protect her from every heartache, bump/bruise, fear, etc.- it is necessary. They are testing the limits of their small world and discovering there is much more out there. It is so scary for us as parents. We were designed to want to shield them…insert momma bear instincts! But, sometimes we just need to take a breath, momma, and let them fully experience. Let them dream, leap, climb, test the boundary a little and slowly watch their spirits unfold.

I don’t think I will ever get my Monday Moving Music actually on Monday, but I’m trying to get closer. I came across this song last week and I have just meditated on it all day. It has been the outcry of my heart and I believe it needs to be the outcry of our church as a nation.

It is a call for us to individually come clean and purified before God as we cry out to Him. I think to often we, I, forget this important part of coming before the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Healer of nations and Savior of souls. Yes, Jesus has cleansed us of our sins and forgiven once and for all at the cross, but we need to come repenting and acknowledging the cleansing that has occurred, that has flooded over us by the power of the cross. And what a glorifying time that is, acknowledging where you have fallen so short and are so guilty, yet realizing Christ, in His magnificent grace, has made you completely holy and pure in the site of God. Let us long to grow to look more and more like the blameless bride He is coming for.

I think the chorus is by far my favorite part:

It’s the power of Your presence
That changes us
Your glory all around us
And we’re undone
You open up the Heavens
And fall afresh on us

I don’t know what more words I can add to that besides, wow! It is HIS POWER that changes us. It is His power, alone! His glory surrounding us leaves us undone and He gracefully opens up the Heavens to fall afresh on us. That is, should be, our prayer! There are so many alternative ways out there to find change, growth, help, empowerment, but we were all created to need and long for His power to change us.

The bridge of the song is my prayer for each of our hearts and for the church.

Holy Spirit… fill this heart again
Holy Spirit… burn like fire within

I pray that we individually will feel the fire of the Holy Spirit burn like a wild fire deep within us through the power of the presence of the Lord. And may the Holy Spirit fill our hearts again.

Kari Jobe never ceases to amaze me with the lyrics of her songs as being just very worshipful, honest cries out to the Lord for His glory to be felt and seen. I pray this song spreads for God’s glory, but much more than just the worship song, I pray the message behind it spreads. I know there are so many hurting in many different areas of life. Life is a rough uphill battle and sometimes it feels like you have no one fighting in your corner and no one hearing your cries. Might I encourage you to cry out to God in the midst of your storm even if it seems like “it’s just going as high as the ceiling” as people say. Fight against Satan with the word of God, the worship of God, the prayers of His people. There is supreme power in the presence of God. From the moment He made you, He fearfully and wonderfully made every part of you (Psalm 139:14) and He will complete a good (amazing) work in you (Philippians 1:6).

Romans 12:3-8 “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”

A lot of us have done those tests that help narrow down what your spiritual gift(s) are. I love tests like that because I always need help narrowing things down. Even with that, I have two that are pretty dominant. Using your spiritual gifts brings fulfillment in service to God. We are all created with a different part to play. It is a cooperative play with beautiful individual pieces working together to form one amazing working body as the bible says. When we examine the scriptures comparison, it makes so much sense. When our body has all of the different parts working the way they were designed, it is a beautiful thing. It is beautiful when your arms are able to reach out and extend an encouraging hug; your legs able to walk with your child/grandchild up that mountain; your heart pumping the right amount of blood at just the right the second and so on. Then there is the alternative, when the cells in your body are attacking one another resulting in potential death; your legs slowly becoming too shaky to use and almost becoming as if they are no longer your own; your brain has now become an enemy and made even your most loved ones, strangers. When each body member is not performing its function, it creates strain on the other parts of the body and chaos.

I feel like this lesson is something I had learned awhile back. But, it’s funny how God teaches you lessons then reteaches with a little twist to remind you, hey, you don’t have this figured out, dude! It’s just like part of verse 3-“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought”. Throughout the last year with the pain and reduced activity, I have not been able to live out my spiritual gifts the way I had or planned too. The key words being-the way I had planned and “my” spiritual gifts. I had to learn to live out my spiritual gifts differently and serve in a new way.

I have always been an “action” type person. I am going 24/7 and if I’m sitting still then I feel like I’m doing something wrong.

I applied that to how I served God and subsequently others as well. That was until God stopped me in my tracks. So, you have a choice, either stop serving until things are in pristine circumstances again or adjust and grow. We usually have a picture of how things are “supposed” to go and then God has the actual canvas laid out. When we truly surrender ourselves to being used in any way that He plans then we can sincerely be used in the body of Christ.

The gifts that I have really been focused on now are service, by prayer, and encouragement. I struggled with prayer, at first, as if sitting back and praying for someone rather than being present serving was somehow not enough. Service has always been one of my spiritual gifts, but it has been more in a physical capacity. So, I had to adjust my thoughts in this area. When it got down to it and I really took a hard look, (Psalms 139:23-24), I had to realize that I was really thinking of myself “more highly than I ought” in a sense. When we pray, we are crying out for God to move in a person’s life, a situation, a crisis, etc. We are interceding on someone’s behalf in the name of Jesus who has the power to move Heaven and Earth; speak and heal; and to dry every tear. But, I thought “my presence” would mean more than that? You see where I’m going with that??? It’s not to say that physically serving is not Incredibly important. We are called to be the hands and the feet of Christ. But, at the times when we cannot physically be there or in any case really, we are called to pray. God is supremely powerful and He wants to hear us cry out to Him on our behalf and on the behalf of others. It is such a service that I think we forget about.

I have always found music to be an encouragement to me. God has always used the words in songs to really lift me up, convict my heart and motivate me at the different times I needed it. There is something about encouragement that just gives you the strength to keep going and climb to new heights.

God has really given me a heart for this. I have realized through these trials that you don’t have to have everything figured out yourself in order to encourage another. You don’t even have to “feel” encouraged yourself necessarily in order to encourage another. God will give me a scripture, a song, a quote, anything that I can pass on to another. As a side note, I never share unless I feel like He is leading me too. Even then sometimes I hold back because I start to think well maybe they will think it is a nuisance, I’ll seem to preachy, etc. But, those are the times I know Satan has in turn used me to block a message that someone may have really needed. The times I have resisted that, I have had people say, man I really needed that. It is never something that I feel I did on my own because it is always something that I wait on God to prompt my heart for. I say these things not to try to sound proud in any way. I say it because it is something that I do in order to keep myself humble. I struggle with the tug-a-war of wanting to be used by God and then sometimes feeling like I somehow did something great. Therefore, I try to build as many caution tape barriers as I possibly can and pray like crazy that God will guard against it. So, that is one of my caution tape barriers. I don’t send an encouragement out unless I feel the Spirit prompting. I feel as though if I began to do it without the Spirit leading me, then I would start to want to take credit for it. Then it becomes something done not out of worship and glory to God, nor out of service, but about me.

I am slowly learning that through every circumstance to consider it joy just like James 1:2-6 says about trials. Because it is producing perseverance and growth in ways that would not have happened without the struggles. I do not enjoy the trial, nor am I enjoying the current trials we are going through, but I am so thankful that God is teaching me who He is through it. I have to cling to it. And I refuse to remain idle. I will serve, thrive and help build his kingdom in any way that He gracefully sees fit in the process. All too often, we (I) get bogged down in our struggles and forget that there are so many around us that are drowning, trying to cling to any life preserver in sight. We can use the gifts He has faithfully given us, through His grace, to help the people around us. No matter the difficulties and trials you are facing today, find your strength in Christ. Hold on to His promises and meditate on them. Then find your place to use your gifts He mercifully gave through His grace. Even if you have to adjust based on your physical condition, I urge you to pray. I urge you to find your place in the body of Christ. All members of the body are needed. If your member has changed a little based on your physical/mental condition, grief, finances, etc., find your new member and start now.

I know I’m a little late on the Monday music post, but it’s been a difficult few days. It is ironic because that actually allowed for the perfect song for this week to be presented.

Music moves the soul. Music is my dream because I have so strongly experienced it literally lifting a searching, broken soul out of the lowest depth. I have been and am that broken soul so often. I think we all are. It may be just the beat, rhythm, melody, harmony, etc. that gets you at first but then the words seep in and begin to slowly soak the wounds that cut us deeply. It may be only one or two words out of a song. But then there are those, like this song, that speak to your core and almost offer up a prayer to God that you couldn’t quite put into your own words.

We have had a few things that have not gone in our favor the last few weeks. We are still waiting on closing on our house which is now a month past when we were supposed to close, my pain has been getting worse and at every turn we are made to be stuck with obstacles that make it seem like God doesn’t want things to improve. There are personal struggles that come along with that when the world just seems to pull at you at every turn. It almost seems like God is insistent that we live in this continuous valley with little fire storms being pelted down.

When there seems to be no relenting in the storm, you have two choices. You can look up or you can look downcast. I love the words of this song because they are so honest. I feel like they are right where my heart is now. I feel like I don’t have any moving prayers to offer or at moments, I feel I can’t mutter a breath. I come before the King with nothing. I brought nothing to get there in the first place. And the interesting thing is all He asks me to do is to bring my broken soul to Him for healing.

Take me to the king
I don’t have much to bring
My heart is torn in pieces
It’s my offering
Take me to the king

Truth is I’m tired
Options are few
I’m trying to pray
But where are you?
I’m all churched out
Hurt and abused
I can’t fake
What’s left to do?

Truth is I’m weak
No strength to fight
No tears to cry
Even if I tried
But still my soul
Refuses to die
One touch will change my life

Take me to the king
I don’t have much to bring
My heart’s torn into pieces
It’s my offering

Lay me at the throne
Leave me there alone
To gaze upon your glory
And sing to you this song
Please take me to the king

Truth is it’s time
To stop playing these games
We need a word
For the people’s pain

So lord speak right now
Let it fall like rain
We’re desperate
We’re chasing after you

No rules, no religion
I’ve made my decision
To run to you
The healer that I need

Take me to the king
I don’t have much to bring
My heart’s torn to pieces
It’s my offering

Lay me at the throne
Leave me there alone
To gaze upon your glory
And to sing to you this song

Take me to the

Lord we’re in the way
We keep making mistakes
Glory is not for us
Its all for you

Take me to the king
I don’t have much to bring
My heart’s torn to pieces
It’s my offering

Lay me at the throne
Leave me there alone
To gaze upon your glory
And sing to you this song

This song is not just a personal cry, it is an outcry for a nation. It is the pleading of people that are hurting and waiting on God to move in our life. I like the chorus of this song because it simply says in the midst of all life’s turmoil, “Take me to the King. I don’t have much to bring. My heart’s torn to pieces. It’s my offering.”

God doesn’t ask us to bring much. Take the loaves and the fish that feed over 5,000. Not much food was required, but faith was required. Jeremiah 29:10-14a “This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lords, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity.” We just have to come, brokenness and all.

I will let the words of this song stand on their own as I feel like they are a prayer all on their own. It is the cry of my heart right now. I hope you find it as good of a listen as I did.

When you first bring your child home from the hospital, they are truly a bundle of joy. Beautiful, perfect, the most precious gift you could ever receive. You could spend every waking moment staring into their tiny little eyes. You just want to lay there holding their tiny hands and cuddling all day as if nothing else in the world matters. The day you have to go back to work as a mom or dad seems like a travesty. It is an injustice to the world. How could you leave this precious angel for just one second? Oh, the horror. You tell yourself, if only I was lucky enough to stay home with this sweet child then all would be alright.

Fast forward a few more years into toddlerhood, in our case, and you get the time to stay home…through very unfortunate circumstances. It will hopefully only be momentary (due to the circumstances), but still any time with your precious angel is magical, right?

Right?????

I will now get to live in the dream world that all other stay-at-home moms get to live in for a little bit. It won’t look exactly the same because of my back, but we can still make it work. We can have tea parties, play barbies, learn, paint our nails, have movie days….you know just sweet day after sweet day.

Okay, ALERT!!!! Stay-at-home moms, your job is hard! I literally spend no waking moment of my day alone. I go to shower, pee…”mommy, I just thought you should know I’m here and I still love you.” Sweet, right? Totally! But, oh, how I desperately long for a breath just to myself sometimes. Being able to take care of any household chore, phone call, anything besides devoted attention to my sweet angel is almost out of the question except for nap time. Then before you know it, nap time has zoomed by! Being able to get even 10-15 minutes in for a quiet time is my ultimate goal. It calms my spirit and gives me rest. But, even that feels almost unattainable at times.

Now, I have been in both worlds-working and now staying at home for a little while. A mother’s job, no matter how it looks, is Never easy. Working moms have it completely difficult as well, so please, no working moms take any offense to this. Your job is equally as hard. I always felt like I never had enough time for my daughter and I was short-changing her with the energy I had left. That was my struggle and I really struggled with working. But, at the same time, I loved working and felt equally as passionate about that. Besides, it was what you had to do and what I will do again when given the chance. For this season, I am just having the chance to write from a different perspective that I never thought I would totally understand. But, I think in either situation, this last part applies to us both in some capacity.

Staying at home, to me, is like a snow day. It is beautiful because you get to see a masterpiece up close. God’s handiwork right at your fingertips. You get to play with it, have fun with it by building snowmen; snowball fights; and snow angels. You get to snuggle inside after playing–you hold each other tight with a cup of hot cocoa. But, then comes the driving in it. You have such HUGE responsibility when driving in snow or ice. After getting bundled up, you must clear the snow off the windshield so you can see properly; your door to get in; shovel off the driveway. You do all this just so you can leave your house. Then comes navigating the road with all the uncertainty of the terrain and how other drivers will react to the conditions. You stay white knuckled at the helm making sure that you and everyone in the car gets to where you’re going safely. I feel the same about this season of motherhood. It is beautiful, it is miraculous. I wouldn’t trade it for the world because I am watching God’s masterpiece (Psalm 139:13-16) up close. But, the days are not always easy and perfect like I imagined. We are three years old now. We skipped terrible twos and gave mom the illusion that we were the exception to the rule! But, bring on the terrify threes. They are filled with a lot of learning the wise and unwise ways to behave in this big ol’ world. We have a lot of snow and ice to navigate through on this road. And sometimes mommy doesn’t always know the right way, because no one gave me the sacred GPS for this one either! It is hard work. Never for a second do you doubt how much all of the effort is worth in the long run for the success of your child. But, just like with the snow, sometimes the “work” becomes the focus and we forget about the beauty of it. We have to make sure to set aside a moment or two of our very hectic schedules to notice the beauty playing, growing and being silly right in front of us. Breath it in. It will be gone before we know it and on to the next season.

It’s amazing the amount of weight that we, as mothers, bear on our shoulders.

I love Christmas time because you get to see all the family pictures, newsletters and posts about what is new in the lives of people who are close and those you have lost touch with. It is a blessed time getting to read about all the adventures, see the new family additions, cute dress-up clothes, etc. I love it!

It is also a time of self-analyzing that I know we don’t always do intentionally. We look at everyone else’s accomplishments as mothers whether it be number of “picture-perfect” children, financial status, or how picturesque the family looks in the photos and think-what have I done wrong and where have I fallen short? Or, why didn’t I get started on Christmas cards sooner this year?! It’s amazing the amount of weight that we, as mothers, bear on our shoulders. It is not because anyone else necessarily placed it on there, but because we have a vision of how great our children’s lives should be and that the sole responsibility of their happiness, healthiness, and ability to amount to greatness rests in the palms of our hands.

I have bore this responsibility heavily lately with the inability to be the mother that I envisioned for my child. There are days where I see it as okay and have accepted this season in our lives. Then there are others days, most days, where I see it as a handicap my daughter must bear as well. It is unfair, I want to scream and cry as loud as my soul and body are able. We don’t have a “Pinterest” schedule where we awake, do crafts, school time, paint some more, then finish the day up with more outside playing. There are days where that can be done, but it is not typical. Will she be at a disadvantage growing up this way? Will I be the cause if she doesn’t reach the office of President of the United States?

We all have our battles, whether it be a physical limitation, there’s never enough time, we feel like we work too much, etc. I don’t know that I have ever met a mother that truly feels, oh by golly I’ve got it-my kids are going to be amazing because I am the best, did everything right, I am perfect. We all struggle with feeling like we have to strive just a little bit more to achieve perfect motherhood so that our children will be alright.

Those thoughts brought me to this Christmas and thinking a lot about the manger. We were striving (there’s that word again) to get my daughter to truly understand the meaning of Christmas is all about the manger, not the Christmas presents. But, coincidentally enough, as I sit back and think about all my striving, I go back to that manger. Since the garden of Eden when Eve and Adam sinned, we have never been enough on our own. And that’s a tough pill to swallow…I’m a perfectionist! But, our miracle came that Christmas morning when Jesus came to earth. He came to live, die and rise again to be enough for each and every one of us.

I remember praying the night before my first spinal surgery as I was scared out of my mind. It was routine to everyone else, except me. I prayed that night that I would be able to give my child up to God, no matter the outcome. It is a prayer I have to pray often. It is not easy to “give your child up” even though He is the one from whom the gift came in the first place (interesting thought). He is the one who can care and raise up a child, lead and direct wiser than any of us. Yet, we want to be in sole control of it all and think if we aren’t-chaos ensues. That Christmas morning, when Jesus came it changed everything. He has saved me and given me power that I so desperately lack on my own. He has my child’s best interest at heart because He is her Father as well, looking on with an even greater love I can’t begin to understand. His grace, mercy, wisdom, power, and so much more are more than enough for us both. So, take a breath mommas! And don’t forget who is truly holding us all.

Recently, my wonderful husband went to the doctor and got a bad report on his health. This came after months of consistent exercising: two-a-days at that! My sweet husband who has been there for me through all of life’s challenges was so discouraged. Why, after all this effort, was there no change in health and now there has to be even more massive changes made? He has sacrificed much on our journey over the last couple of years. He has tried to diet only to lose the way when my health would decline. It is just human nature, when life gets tough, you do what you have to do to fight and that doesn’t always include eating balanced meals. So, instead of stay in a state of wallowing, He pushes through to make complete life changes. Now, it was my time to repay his loving generosity of always taking care of my health and find a good diet plan that would hopefully work. It would need to be one we could maintain to provide measurable success. I did a lot of research and we landed on 21 day FIX. I will be honest, I was overwhelmed at first. I was trying to figure out all the little containers and how to make it work throughout his day. I finally made a menu for Monday…whew, that was difficult! I had a toddler running around as well asking 300 hundred questions. I thought I am never going to make it through this and will definitely not even make it to Tuesday! Well, then Tuesday came, then Wednesday. It got a little easier each day. I started to get excited planning out his meals and seeing what all I could get in there.

My only qualms at this point are variety. However, I think that is more my problem and not the diet. So, if any of you have ideas on different snacks that are super healthy…I am all ears!! I am having difficulty fitting all of the required containers with different foods. There are 6 red containers (protein), 4 purples (fruit), 6 greens (veggies), 4 yellows (carbs), 1 blue (Healthy Fats), 1 orange (Seeds and Dressings), and 6 teaspoons of oils and nut butters. In reality, it is a lot of food allowed. But, it is nutritional and healthy food. I love being able to cook clean food for our family. Well, honestly, my husband does pretty much all the cooking because of my back…but still. (: I am currently using Pinterest as a really handy resource. Here is a link to my board of 21 Day Fix approved recipes and shopping lists. They are super handy! https://www.pinterest.com/rossj5890/dieting/

Dieting, to me, is an adventure

Dieting, to me, is an adventure. You can add so many different spices to completely change up a meal. I am ready to start making smoothies, as well, to start getting more fruits and veggies into the diet without just eating them fresh or cooked. Everyone has a different diet plan they like to use-some have worked miracles and some have not. I am so interested in hearing about what diet plans have worked well for you. Please share! And feel free to share any healthy recipes or snack ideas. I would love to hear it!